


The Pieces of What Was

by too many stars to count (imagined_away)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comment Fic, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Moving On, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagined_away/pseuds/too%20many%20stars%20to%20count
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't know how to keep going...Instead Ron tries to build a new life. The Weasley family is mourning, Ron included. Written for the prompt "Ron - post-war - How do you pick up the threads of an old life?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pieces of What Was

  
The Pieces of What Was   


 

  
He doesn't know how to keep going.   


He also doesn't know how to go back to just being Ron, to who he was before the War started. So he doesn't try. His old life seems foreign and impossibly simple. Instead Ron tries to build a new life.

Ron doesn't stay at the Burrow after the battle.  _Can't_  stay there is more accurate.

He can't look at Mum's clock without seeing the fallen hand that had been laying at the bottom of the clock once they came home from the battle.

Mum can barely look at the clock, period.

He stayed at the Burrow for two nights. Mum didn't cry or cook all day as he'd half expected. Instead she bustled around comforting everyone in sight.

At night though he could he her cry. The first night wasn't too bad. But on the second night, when he realized Dad was crying now, Mum's soft, soothing voice lost in the sobs racking her husband, Ron knew he needed to leave

He can't look at Bill or Charlie with out seeing how lost they look that they were unable, for the first time, to protect one of their younger siblings. Sure Ron's been in danger before, life threatening danger really, but they were never  _there_  when it was happening and he'd always made it out okay.

But now they're both trapped in the certainty that Fred would be alive if they had done something differently. It doesn't matter that it's not true, the grief is easier to bear if they have someone to blame and Dolohov's dead. Percy had caught up with him after all.

Ron looks at Ginny and all he can think is how sorry he is. He knows enough about what happened at Hogwarts to know that his sister has survived hell for the second time. He tries to remember her before the chamber and finds it difficult. 

The Ginny he knows now has been strong and self-reliant for over five years now. He can't reconcile the Ginny from before his Second Year - happy, open with her emotions, never stopping to think about what was coming out of her mouth - with the Ginny of after. The Ginny who had a closed secret smile now, the one who still shudders at the sight of red ink and who keeps all of her secrets to herself now that diaries have become unbearable. 

It's still blessedly easy to gather her in his arms though and she cries and it reminds him so much of being nine and doing the same thing when she fell out of an apple tree on their property.

Percy has become George's shadow. He never says anything about Fred, and he doesn't follow George too closely, but the haunted look Ron sees in his eyes when Percy thinks no one is looking tells him the truth; Percy has lost one brother. He will not let another get away.

Between Percy and himself, they get George back to functioning at least. He eats, showers, and tries to sleep, but Ron knows he's not okay yet.

One day Ron goes to the joke shop by himself and looks around the back room. He spots a sheet of notes about one of their unfinished inventions and takes it to the burrow with him. He sits in his old room for a few hours looking at the notes they'd made and drawing diagrams on a new sheet of parchment.

Hours later he finds George in the sitting room and shows him the notes both old and new. "If you try a freezing charm on the jar it will keep the jar cool without killing the fire." He's not entirely sure what the item they were trying to build is, but he does know they kept killing their own fires by accident.

Slowly George takes the notes from him. "We've tried a freezing charm." His voice is hoarse but it's there and that's enough for Ron.

"I was thinking we could try it on the inside of the glass, instead of casting it on the entire jar. And Hermione knows a great spell for small containable fires. They burn blue but I'm sure we could figure out a way to change that." Ron said pulling a diagram he'd drawn free of the pile of parchment to show George.

After a long while, long enough that Ron thinks he's made a mistake, George nods. "We're going to need to go to the shop to work on this." George informs him. "Mum will have kittens if we accidentally let a fire loose in the sitting room."

Ron realizes then that he can't go back. As much as he wants to the only choice now is to try and fit the pieces of what  _was_  into what  _is_.

**Author's Note:**

> I love to read about the Weasley family trying to move on after the Final Battle, and I finally decided to try my hand at writing it. Please let me know what you think!


End file.
